9781422277577

Life at St. Mary’s The Bacteriology Department at St. Mary’s was a strange place for Fleming. He seemed to be the complete opposite of everyone else there. Fleming was state-educated—a scholarship boy from a polytechnic school. He was small, very quiet and reserved, and spoke with a broad Scottish accent. He found himself surrounded by ex-army men, mostly officers and mainly from the older universities and public schools . They were tall men—several more than six feet tall. They called Wright, who was the most senior officer among them, “the Old Man,” in the same way that a ship’s crew would refer to their captain. Fleming had one thing in common with all these others. He adored the Old Man and wanted only to please him. Fleming was one of the second generation of bacteriologists in Britain. Whereas the pioneers of a science have to find their way entirely alone, those who follow are taught at least some of the subject. The directions for further investigation are often set by the teacher, at least to start with, and Fleming and the other students who joined Wright’s department were put to work on the things that interested the Old Man. Today, medical research work is paid for by large pharmaceutical companies, often supplemented by grants from government health services. But in the first half of the twentieth century, research was often conducted by medical professionals as a hobby, and was paid for out of their other earnings or from private funds. Wright, like most senior workers in the department, had a private medical practice. He persuaded his patients to donate money so that he could conduct research at the hospital. Wright and his team of students would devote their evenings to their research, after a full day’s work in the hospital.

Opposite page: The entrance to St. Mary’s Hospital on Praed Street in Paddington, London, where Alexander Fleming received his medical training.

12